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Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Drillimation)
Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, known in Japan as , is a 1992 danmaku shooter video game developed by the newly founded Team Shanghai Alice branch of Drillimation Studios and published by Namco. The game was released in the arcades in May 1992, then the home consoles in June and August of that year. Blurb A red mist from a mansion on an island in a lake is being emitted and spreading all over Gensoukyou, blinding you and the sun, making the summer gloomy and chilly! You take on the roles of Reimu Hakurei, the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine or Marisa Kirisame, the magician and friend of Reimu. If you haven't seen them yet, it's been four long years and before that time, both Reimu and Marisa have undergone a complete makeover. When you finally meet both Remilia and Flandre Scarlet, you'll be in the fiercest battle ever yet. They're young at sight, and your place in history is 1692, four years after the previous adventure. Don't wait until Flandre, because she has been sealed for nearly five centuries. Gameplay Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, or abbreviated as EoSD, features two playable characters to choose from, each having two distinct attack types. Reimu Hakurei covers a wide area of the screen with weaker attacks, whereas Marisa Kirisame relies on her speed and power to make up for her thinner attack spread. The bombs ("Spell Cards") also show different behavior and damage depending on the character and type chosen. Some important gameplay features that Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil introduces over its predecessor Touhou 5: Mystic Square are automatic item collection, which allows the player to collect all items on screen by moving to the top of the screen at full power; and the counter-bomb system, which allows the player to negate an enemy hit by pressing the bomb button immediately after contact with the enemy projectile. Also, this game is the first Touhou game to feature Touhou's iconic "Spell Card" system. Each Spell Card is a particular bullet pattern and is given a name. A bonus can be earned if the player does not use a bomb or die during any particular pattern. Development Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil began development after the release of Touhou 5: Mystic Square in early 1989 for the Driller Engine 1000 board under the title of Touhou 6: Eastern Scarlet Teahouse. The game was in development for three and a half years before being released. After ZUN found out the new Driller Engine 2000 board, development of the game shifted to the new board. ZUN's general goal when creating Touhou 6: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was to remove the systems appearing in newer shoot' em ups, which he thought overly complicated the games, and to let the player have fun simply dodging bullets. The original name was a reference to the stage 3 theme. However, engineers at Drillimation Studios felt the name didn't match the game's story, so Hiroshi Takajima, very politely, asked ZUN to change the name to make it match the story. As the first Driller Engine 2000 game, a new engine was written from scratch using the new programming functions that Driller Engine 2 offered - with help from a few libraries from Amusement Software after it went defunct the previous year due to improper sales management - and ZUN apologizes for the seeming lack of creativity with things like grunt enemies, citing a lack of manpower while concentrating on building up libraries and tools himself. The engine would later be used for the games Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom, Touhou 8: Imperishable Night, and Touhou 9: The Phantasmagoria of Flower View. The engine was also used in the main Drillimation games including Super Lucky Star 4, Star Trigon: The Arcade, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Arcade, and Lucky Star Bloodlines. The game's data files shows the name Satsuki Rin near the other playable characters. Associated with her are the attack types Flower Sign and Wind Sign. These suggest that this girl was planned as a playable character, but got scrapped during the process of making the game. The unused character exists within the game's files, but can only be accessed through hacking and cheating devices. When asked about it, ZUN didn't remember her. Reception The game mainly received positive reviews from the critics. The arcade, Super Nintendo, and PC versions sold exceptionally well, while the Sega Genesis version sold poorly. GamePro described the Genesis version as "sluggishly slow than a standard Drillimation game". The Genesis version was also complicated to play due to there being only three buttons, and IGN said you had to use the C button to focus. After the arcade release, over 2,000 arcade chains across the globe including Chuck E. Cheese's, Dave & Buster's, and many roller-skating rinks used red lights as the red mist seen in-game to promote the new game. References in later games *''Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom'': Artwork of Cirno is reused for her cut-ins. *''Killer Minecraft: Immaterial and Missing Power'': A rock version of The Maid and the Pocket Watch of Blood and Lunar Clock and Dial appears in-game. *''Driller Engine Grand Prix 2x2'': Several billboards in-game are references to the game itself. If the player enters the Konami Code during the course intro of Yutaka Bazaar and Takanomiya Park, then a Driller Engine 4000/5000 remix of Shanghai Teahouse will play. *''Mr. Driller GX'': If the player looks away from Yutaka Zhong from a small distance, Yutaka will play measures 3 - 18 Beloved Tomboyish Girl on her flute in G Major. Trivia *This is the first Touhou Project game to not feature Mima, due to the fact that she was killed during the events of the 1990 short film Touhou 5.5: Death of a Ghost. Category:Video games Category:Bullet hell video games Category:Arcade games Category:Super Nintendo games Category:Sega Genesis games Category:PC games